Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: The Energetics Of Intent

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I greet and honor my catalpa tree every morning…

Choices, opportunities, signs and synchronicities intrigue me. What will we do with the information we receive? What choice will we make?

While sitting in meditation, gazing out over the catalpa tree in the back yard—my tree, as I call it, for it has given me such deeply resonant answers to so many moments of indecision—I pondered these questions. I noticed the branches of the tree, some thick and strong, extending heavenward, energetically vibrant, others short and thin, ending in many spiky nodes. Here, I thought, is an example of making choices in life. Do we choose the path of healing energy, the strong and upward path of heart as represented by the stronger branches, or do we choose the shorter route that energetically explodes in many directions as represented by the smaller branches.

We make the choices we make based on where we are in our lives, on our experiences and our desires. But what if we were to make our choices based solely on different messages, those that come from deep within, from our ancient spirit selves supported by what comes from without to guide us?

As many of you know, I elected to take the longer route—after many years of avoiding it—by beginning a shamanic recapitulation. Facing all that lay hidden inside, I barreled ahead into the unknown self and into a future that was equally unknown. I let the energy of the recapitulation carry me forward, shedding everything that was familiar. I let myself be supported by a strange, and at that time unknown, energy. This was the energy of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico, as I began a healing practice of recapitulation. It became very clear, as I progressed on my journey, that I was fully supported by all who had gone before, those ancients whom had set the intent of recapitulation as the means to deep and evolutionary change.

Today, that intent flows through me too, energetic strands of that ancient intent interwoven now into the practice that Chuck and I bring into the world through our work. Over the years it has become clear to us—as we strive ever upward, like those long branches of the catalpa tree—how important it is that we bring the ancient knowledge of recapitulation to modern awareness. For we are convinced that recapitulation is the means to total and lasting healing from PTSD, from deep trauma of any sort. Whether this message is fully received now or later, after we are long gone, doesn’t really matter. What matters is that we have set the intent to pass it along.

Today the universe delivered a rainbow to the living room floor…

In addition, for the most part, we deliver the message of recapitulation through energetic means. Our intent, in keeping with the ancients, has been that people will find their way, that they will discover the healing power of recapitulation because it is so right. And that is just what has happened. Though we use some commercial means to publish our work—using the Internet to maintain a website and the self-publishing advantage offered by Amazon—for the most part, everything we offer is free. Even my books on recapitulation, the second to be published in the next few months, are provided at the barest minimum. We make no money on them, and yet we do not lack, for we have everything we need. This too is a result of engaging in and trusting in the power of intent.

And so, I acquiesce to the reality of the power of intent—the intent of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico and all others who energetically impart knowledge—absent of the busyness of engaging in all the buzz from outside (even the Pope is tweeting now!) for it really isn’t necessary. In absenting the self from all the outer buzz—from the greed for more connection; for the best deals, fearful that we’ll miss something; from the energy that is all consuming and over-consuming—we gain the inner calmness and the quiet that is required so we can be available to hear what the universe is telling us. In this manner, we become energetically available ourselves to channel the messages of the universe, to flow with the energy of ancient intent, to become part of a badly needed healing energy.

As I gaze out over my catalpa tree, I receive the message that now, more than ever before, it’s time for all of us to take full responsibility for our thoughts—as energetically resonant and affecting as our tweets and face-booking—for our actions, and for our own healing. Healing is truly an energetic process, and this we discover as soon as we turn inward, for here we find all we need.

As we decide upon a path, may it be a path of heart, a path of healing for the self and the world. May it be a path of ancient intent, for that is where the greatest energy lies, the deepest connection to soul, the possibility for true and lasting change. May we all choose the long branch when we come to the crook in the tree, rather than the short branch. If we pause long enough to contemplate, we will realize we’ve already taken that short and spiky branch so many times before, its end predictable. If we pause long enough to determine that it is indeed time to become fully responsible for healing the self, we will tap into the ancient intent of such healing practice and be supported and guided along the way.

A process of change, of recapitulation, of healing, is just that, a process, and so there are lumps and bumps to contend with, there are obstacles to encounter, there are challenging precipices to endure as we plunge ahead on our journeys, and yet there are also moments of great awakening and sublime experience as we open ourselves to such energy of intent. Our personal intent to embrace a practice of healing is embraced in return by the energy of ancient intent. Chuck and I are living in that embrace, and it is our deepest wish that others discover it and experience it too.

Here is Jeanne’s energy of intent as I once painted it…

Now, as we come to the end of the year, as the winter solstice is soon upon us, we see how crucial it is for all of us who inhabit this planet to come together, energetically. We can do this by consuming less, destroying less, wasting less time, resources, energy, etc., turning instead to the energetic practice of intending change. Repeatedly intending change and personally taking responsibility to enact change in our own lives means there is hope for us, and this planet that we have done such a good job of bringing to the brink of destruction. Real change can happen on an energetic level. That’s my message for today.

And so I encourage all of you to give the gift of energy this holiday season, by intending healing, love, and kindness along with your other gifts. Begin a personal practice, extending positive energy to all in your nearness, to those you love and those who challenge you the most. And don’t be afraid to talk to the trees! They have a lot to tell us. Step out onto a new branch; a new path of heart, without fear, keeping in mind at all times that energetic intent is what binds us all. Let’s use it more fully now. Let’s heal.

From within the energetics of intent, I send you greetings,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

Readers of Infinity: Open Your Heart

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Begin to melt your heart for the self too…

Here is a message from Jeanne:

If you can learn to open your heart to yourself, so will you one day be able to more fully open your heart to others, as well as be available to commune with and receive from the interconnected universe.

Begin now to accept the self in a new way. With gentleness melt the hard judgments, the condemnations and restrictions placed upon the self by the self and the world-at-large. Begin a systematic assessment of how you judge yourself on a daily basis. Notice how hardhearted you really are toward the self and begin softening at the heart itself. For it is from this central point on the human body that the real work of lasting change will manifest.

As you begin softening your heart, you will notice that many thoughts, mostly negative at first, will arise. The idea that one cannot allow the self to be caring and tender toward the self must be abolished, for only in opening the arms of the heart to the self will one be able to manage the process that will unfold as one faces all that pours out of the heart, all the feelings and emotions, as well as old negative ideas and judgments. Enduring the pain of all that pours out of the heart will be both an arduous task as well as a healthy one, and in the end a physically and emotionally strong heart will be your gift.

Embrace your own heart today and let it begin speaking to you of all that it holds for you. In this manner will a process of self-healing ensue. Though some of you may find this process unbearable at this point in your lives, I ask that you hold onto the thought that you will attend to this most important part of your human anatomy and your spiritual soul at another time, for this heart center is where all began and all ends. In this place of meaning lie all the secrets to the self, and to life as well. In softening, opening, listening, and practicing self-healing, your future as an interconnected being—able to give and to receive—will be ensured.

The big Buddha sits with quiet heart for all…

Find the self acceptable and worthy of a gentle heart-opening practice. Set the intent that you will begin or deepen this practice daily. Or if you are not quite ready, set the intent that you will begin this practice as you feel ready. Do not be hard on the self, but do remind the self often that a life lived with a hard heart is really no life at all, but a life lived with a soft and supple heart is the most fascinating life one could wish for.

Let the energy of the universe flow into and out of your heart and you will begin to notice how pleasant and joyous your life will become, how sweet your inner thoughts will become, how nonjudgmental and considerate you will be to the self, and to others in the world, as you work at this process of deep change.

Thank the self daily for daring to change. From the heart outward, will you notice this changing self. It may pain you at first to open to this process, but very quickly you will feel no pain, for your own heart is very accepting of who you are. After all, it has been with you for your entire existence and already knows all there is to know. It’s up to you to open up to it and let your life change dramatically, as you accept and love the self in this very easy and practical way.

Breathe gently into your heart and say: I accept myself as a loving and lovely being. I am enough.

And this is enough for today! So take a new step forward on your journey today—in heart-centered opening of the self to the self—and notice how open you become to the world and the greater universe around you as you take this journey inward. You will not be disappointed!

Thank you, Jeanne! Most humbly and happily channeled, hoping you receive the support and encouragement you need as you journey onward.

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Enthusiasm

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In the temple of calm enthusiasm with the big Buddha at The Buddhist Association of the United States in Carmel, New York.

We are in the time of enthusiasm—I Ching hexagram #16—where thunder, the arousing, awakens the receptive earth below. The leader awakens enthusiasm in those he leads. Obama rouses the populace to enthusiastically support change, an end to needless greed.

Guidance suggests that enthusiasm move along the line of least resistance, that is, movement based on truth and nature, as expressed in the Tao, and not on the cogitation of delusional ideas. In their hearts the people know the truth and can accept change in accord with it. In contrast, the people resist change that does not flow with the truth of the heart. We ask our leaders to lead in the truth, not in the delusion. We must ask the same of ourselves, as we lead ourselves through the decisions of our daily lives, always, but most especially in this time of enthusiasm.

From where do we receive our enthusiasm, our impetus to right action? We are baited constantly by enthusiastic offers of energetic spice, promising contentment and fulfillment: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, another cup of coffee, another romantic hit online, another glass of wine. When we take the bait and attach, we enter the tunnels of excitement and receive energetic spikes, the bounty of the entity gods, but nothing lasting.

The I Ching counsels retreating to the temple in the time of enthusiasm, offering prayer and music to the ancestors and the gods. In this manner, we experience sacred communion with God. With this connection we intuit the direction to be followed, as the arousing is felt from the true source, the SELF, God, the Atman in all of us.

The sacred temple of our time is found in our own practice—be it meditation, sacred music or dance, or perhaps even Facebook—as we traverse the path that eventually takes us to the bridge leading to our infinite selves. From this infinite place we see, we know, right action. We can rest and rejuvenate in the bliss of this calm unattached energy, energy that informs right action along the least line of resistance; action in harmony with and originating from the Tao.

Beware deluded enthusiasm, recognizable in erratic bipolar spikes of energy and restlessness. True enthusiasm comes in calm energy that finds the middle way.

Enthusiastically calm,
Chuck

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Always Change & Change Is Good

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Seasonal change is inevitable…ice on the deck this morning…

Change is good. This is one of my favorite mottos. Change is good. Back in the days before I had done a shamanic recapitulation I had another, similar, motto that went like this: Always change. Back then I was suffering from PTSD (Post-traumatic Stress Disorder), though I didn’t know this. But even so I knew that change was good, I just didn’t really know why, not on a deeper level anyway. Now I know that it was something at a deeper level that was stirring me to always change, PTSD acting as a catalyst that eventually led to self-discovery and real change. The form that change takes under the auspices of PTSD, however, is very different from change that takes place once freed of PTSD.

Back in the PTSD days, change came knocking in uncomfortable stirrings to move, to always change, to change my environment in some way, whether it be changing the furniture in every room of the house every few weeks or uprooting and moving to another apartment, another house, another city, another state, another country, another relationship. I did all of these things, under the auspices of always change, restlessness my constant companion. But something at a deeper level was always asking me: Why do I do this? Why do I have to keep moving and changing? Why can’t I just settle down?

I felt like I was running from something, that if I stopped in one place long enough whatever it was would catch up with me and that would be the death of me. For at some deeper level, I knew that death was what was chasing me—death in one form or another.

Now, on one level, this is true, for death is pursuing us all the time, reminding us that in the end it will get us. In my case, I sensed death differently, the stench of it deep inside me already. Although I didn’t know it, that smell of death—that I could never run far enough away from—was trying to alert me to what I carried inside me: a dying spirit, a dying innocence, a dying sense of hope, for these are some of the things that PTSD robs us of. Until we stop and face what the stench of death is trying to alert us to, we will constantly seek change in our outer world, to find just the right place where we will feel comfortable, safe, and at ease. I went into my late forties always changing before I stopped and faced what was pursuing me, the past that was embodied in that diagnosis of PTSD, a past I had no memory of.

Fires of change like kundalini energy burning through us…

When I first met Chuck, he presented me with those four little letters—PTSD. Oh, so that’s what’s wrong with me! At last I had a name for all that had driven me in so many unsettling ways, a name that felt right. “Yes, I get it, I suffer from PTSD,” I said to myself, “I just never knew it.” Now I had a home, a slot to fit into in the world, I had PTSD. But I would not stay there. I could not settle for long. I refused to be categorized, tagged and diagnosed, for always change was still my motto after all. And so I told myself to change, that change was good, that it was what I needed in order to heal. And so I began a changing, healing journey out of PTSD and into new life. Long and painful though that journey was I would not, in a million years, wish to live the way I used to live.

Now when I say that change is good, I’m talking about the deepest kind of change, change of the self at the deepest level, from the inside out. This involves letting go of everything that has upheld the world we’ve lived in—everything we’ve been taught and taught ourselves, everything we’ve believed and couldn’t bear to believe, everything we’ve created and controlled in order to be safe. This involves learning to let go of our judgments, resentments, fears, and regrets, opening instead to the truth of our infallibilities, our frailties, our imperfections, and our inflations. It involves discovering what it really means to be humble, to live simply, in balance with all of nature, taking only what is necessary. It involves learning to love ourselves so we can one day be available to love another, so we can understand what it means to be loved, and how to give and receive love on a far more expansive, interconnected level of consciousness, far beyond the needs of the self. It involves letting go of our ego selves, detaching from that which has held us in our defended states for so long, making way in the process for a new self. It involves allowing this new self to emerge out of the stench and fear of death that has encapsulated us in all of its forms and fully acknowledge that yes, death is the ultimate catalyst to evolutionary change. It involves discovering for the self what it means to be an evolving being, here in this lifetime to discover and resolve an evolutionary challenge, given another opportunity to get it right.

Opportunities abound, coming at many times throughout our lives. Our challenge is, indeed, to always change, to go with the flow of our lives, accepting full responsibility for where we are at all times, accepting that we are not perfect, that we are human beings, but also that we are evolutionary beings as well, spiritual beings seeking something higher, something far beyond our PTSD, our boredom, our fear, our self-pity and our hopelessness.

Seeking always a higher evolved self…

The deepest kind of change means facing who we’ve become and daring ourselves to become someone far more evolved, far more connected to life on this planet while striving always to become far more aware of the spiritual possibilities of all things, and far more aware of all life as sacred.

The creative, urging us on one level to do something about ourselves or our environment, stirs in us at all times. Perhaps we project it outwardly as I did, as an artist constantly creating something new, some new picture, sculpture, dance, play, music. But after a while a deeper creativity comes knocking, asking us to channel the ultimate creation: a new self. And you know what, it’s really okay to do that, to totally change and become someone new, for after all, in the end, it’s the evolution of the self that we’re all here to spur on to a new level. This is why, I believe, we’re all here—to always change—and such change is always good.

I am a changing being and so are you,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

Readers of Infinity: Behave Differently Now

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Here is the weekly channeled message from Jeanne. May you all find it comforting, guiding, and helpful in our challenging, changing times.

Seek balance in your own way…

Behave differently now. It is time to be openhearted, considerate, kind and compassionate, not just within but also without. It is good to know right from wrong, good from bad, but it is far better to act with this knowing foremost in thought, word, and deed.

All who reside upon that earth at this time, a time of great turmoil and change, must turn from the distractions of want, desire, greed and overconsumption, and turn instead toward a leaner yet softer persona. This more gentle aspect of humanity must come into play now if all is to be accomplished that will lead to lasting change and a new paradigm.

Life must be struck down—life as it is now expressed and grasped at—for there is no longer room for more, there is only the necessity of less. If less is not embraced, less will be presented, and thus less will be forced upon you and less will become the norm. Thus, that which is necessary will ensue—balance will ensue—for that is what is desperately needed and called for upon that planet.

It is time to behave differently, to grasp at deeper meaning and greater awareness, and not just for the few but for the many. Departure from an old way of thinking and behaving is the first step in this much-needed change. As mentioned, if not activated on a personal level, then activation will come from outside, but in reality it will be reverberating inside each one of you in some deep way.

Simplify…

Learn that less is more, that balance is crucial; inside and outside the self, inside and outside the home, inside and outside of everything that you live, encounter, and trust. Balance is all that matters now—simple, lean balance.

Begin to pare down your individual greed and consumption, your individual desires and wants, by questioning the way you feel pulled, the way you are drawn, and the way you are also repelled. Study your world now with thoughts of balance, less, and inner and outer simplicity as your guiding tenets. In this manner begin to behave differently now.

Slow down. Think. Feel. Take less. Give more. Be good. Be kind. Be compassionate. To self and other extend these most gracious human attributes and know that you are participating in the change that is sweeping across your world, far and wide, yet near and dear as well.

Let go of what needs to be let go of, that which you no longer need or wish to carry. Let go of angers, resentments, and old pains that are not worthy of life-giving energy. Let go of that which takes you from your path of growth. Turn toward a simple life now. See that you do not need so much, that life itself offers what you need, and that there is enough to be had by all.

Return to balance within the self and thus return the world to balance, reducing negativity, disease, war, disturbing energies, conflicts within and without. Eradicate that which is no longer helpful and nurture only the positive. This is the side that needs attention now. Think and act and do that which is positive, right, and good. Although such positive actions may be painful to execute, so are they right, and this you all know.

Sense the positive…

Be responsible for changing the behaviors of the self. This is how to start moving in a new direction—the direction that is now needed—from gluttony to simplicity, from the negative to the positive, from bad to good, from dark to light. However you choose to see it, know that it is time to go deeper into your personal process of change.

I leave you with these thoughts today, asking you all to be responsible adults, as if your life depended on it because, in truth, it does—it always did and always will. Be fully responsible for the self. That is where to begin. I give you enough to go on, now take up the cause of change and begin to alter the self. The universe is waiting to take up this cause of change in a positive direction, so know that you will be met with energetically resonant energy in accompaniment. You will be well supported and well met. All you need to do is look in a new direction now, with new eyes and a new heart. It’s that simple.

Channeled with love for you all.

Chuck Ketchel, LCSWR